"On a scale of 1-10..."

Some guy on NPR this morning was talking about the pain of his broken back, and he said "On a scale of 1-10..." and I thought to myself, "He's gonna say 11 or 12", but then he said "I'd say it was a twenty." I don't doubt that the pain of a broken back can be excruciating, beyond what I'll ever know, but now I'll never know. The "scale" has become totally inappropriate due to scale inflation. What would a ten be, childbirth? Having a limb amputated with no anesthesia? We'll never know what "true" 10 means since everything is an 11 or 12 or 20. And if NPR has given up on the whole "one to ten" thing meaning anything then it basically means it's a totally useless phrase which we should eliminate.

The five of you who still read this blog: what phrases are you sick of hearing? Email me and we can all complain together.

Strangely and sadly there is only one place where the 1-10 last still has some relevance, and that's when guys using it to describe girls' faces, although I guess the problem with that scale is, what is a 1? Do guys count old ladies or perhaps people with facial deformities? I will have to ask a man someday what is up with that.

I wrote about Idol last night and picked my favorite.